Message #259273

[Keira Kensington]

"The Whitehall Mystery" was a term coined for the discovery of a headless torso of a woman on 2 October 1888 in the basement of the new Metropolitan Police headquarters being built in Whitehall. An arm belonging to the body was previously discovered floating in the river Thames near Pimlico, and one of the legs was subsequently discovered buried near where the torso was found.[58] The other limbs and head were never recovered and the body was never identified. The mutilations were similar to those in the Pinchin Street case, where the legs and head were severed but not the arms. The Whitehall Mystery and the Pinchin Street case may have been part of a series of murders, called the "Thames Mysteries", committed by a single serial killer, dubbed the "Torso killer".[59] Whether Jack the Ripper and the "Torso killer" were the same person or separate serial killers active in the same area is debatable.[59] As the modus operandi of the Torso killer differed from that of the Ripper, police at the time discounted any connection between the two.[60] Elizabeth Jackson, a prostitute whose various body parts were collected from the river Thames over a three-week period in June 1889, may have been another victim of the "Torso killer".[61]

John Gill, a seven-year-old boy, was found murdered in Manningham, Bradford, on 29 December 1888. His legs had been severed, his abdomen opened, his intestines drawn out, and his heart and one ear removed. The similarities with the murder of Mary Kelly led to press speculation that the Ripper had killed the boy.[62] The boy's employer, milkman William Barrett, was twice arrested for the murder on circumstantial evidence but was released.[62] No-one else was ever prosecuted.[62]

Carrie Brown (nicknamed "Shakespeare", reportedly for quoting Shakespeare's sonnets) was strangled with clothing and then mutilated with a knife on 24 April 1891 in New York City.[63] Her body was found with a large tear through her groin area and superficial cuts on her legs and back. No organs were removed from the scene, though an ovary, either purposely removed or unintentionally dislodged, was found upon the bed.[63] At the time, the murder was compared to those in Whitechapel, though the Metropolitan Police eventually ruled out any connection.[63]